The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves
by Everliah
Summary: "I don't know what this place is. I don't know what's next. I just know that I waited a very long time to love you. And I waited even longer to be loved by you. I'm not going to leave you ever again. Okay?" *Epilogue to TFIOS*


**Author's Note: Okay, so after experiencing some very real and very painful The Fault in our Stars feels, I decided that I needed to get this agony out of my system and I figured the best and most effective way to do that would be to write:)**

 **I don't own any of these characters unfortunately and there are a few quotes from the actual book which I decided to incorporate so full credit goes to the absolutely marvelous and horrendous John Green, who managed to both make me laugh and cry.**

 **Anyways, this is my interpretation of an epilogue to one of my favourite books. I hope you like it!**

 _'_ _To love is nothing. To be loved is something. But to love and be loved, that's everything.' -T. Tolis_

At first, I didn't know what was happening.

In all honesty, my hazed mind was blurry and my eyes were hooded- I could barely open them- and I was still enraptured in the whimsical fancies of something I should have let go of, long ago. The darkness of my room made it hard to make sense of anything around me and when my breath stopped reaching my lungs, I tried to squint into the shadows. My hand drunkenly clawed for anything, anything that could help. I tried to scream. My throat felt constricted, like someone had wrapped their hands around my windpipe and squeezed.

I couldn't form a coherent thought. The panic spiked my bloodstream, and I didn't know what to do. My head felt like it was going to explode.

My heart ached.

I had only felt pain like this once before, a year ago.

But this was physically worse. This was dying.

I think that was my first thought.

 _I'm dying._

It wasn't as monumental as what I thought it was going to be. There was pain; unimaginable pain, like I've never felt before. When I used to become short of breath, I was saved with the ignorant belief that I would pull through and that I would soon be able to inhale fine. But this was different. I had the same thought at first. _Just breathe. Just breathe. Just breathe. You can breathe. Please just breathe._ Until I then had to accept the fact that I wasn't going to breathe anytime soon, and that no matter how hard I tried to call for help through the gasps, my mom and dad were still fast asleep.

My parents were both asleep and I was dying.

It wasn't their fault. My lungs just sucked at being lungs. It was no genetic disorder. It was just a mutation in my cells and that was nobody's fault at all.

I died at 3:46 in the morning, on the 10th June. My body was racked with an uncontrollable spasm that shook my limbs. I needed air and the air wouldn't come because the cancer in my lungs refused to cooperate. I died in my own bed, in the dark, with my fingernails dug into my duvet, alone. My mouth was open in a silent scream.

My mother found me first, I'm sure. She always woke early and I knew she checked on me before she made her way downstairs every morning.

I know she would've been still waking up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. A smile would have graced her lips when she saw me, lying there peacefully, with my eyes closed and mouth open. She would miss the way my hands clenched my bedsheets, and the way my chest didn't seem to move. Her hand would gently reach for mine when she got close enough.

She always used to hold my hand. Not just out of affection. She was checking for a heartbeat.

And when no pulse came, her smile would drop and she would quickly press her fingers to my neck, and then my chest and then she would scream.

I am no stranger to grief. I am well aware of the benumbed state you find yourself in when the tears have fallen and taken all your feelings with them and you find yourself deprived of emotion, as though you were a lemon recently squeezed and you are now drained of your juice.

My mom got the job in the social services place she had been taking courses at. My one hope rested with that. I hoped that would keep her alive.

My dad would no doubt cry; he always cried. And he would be the first to speak at my funeral. And they would bury me in the blue dress that I had worn to the posh restaurant, whose name I can't remember because they knew that day was one of the best in my life. And he would talk about how the cancer had never been an obstacle that shot me down, merely something I had always seemed to find a way around. He wouldn't lie. He would just purposely forget to mention how I had been depressed when I was seventeen, and again after the love of my life was ripped from me thanks to the same thing that had me lying in the coffin.

He would say I was a fighter and that I was brave and strong, he would tell people and the world what you normally hear at funerals because that is what needs to be said. And later, he and my mom would lay together, hands clasped tightly, grieving in silence the daughter they had just buried.

I died at the age of 18. I wasn't a virgin. I didn't change the world. I didn't have a funeral where my hundreds of friends attended. There wasn't a huge memorial for me. I left this world and I didn't feel sad.

In fact, I embraced it.

When I open my eyes again, I blink a little and allow them to adjust to the brightness of wherever I am. My vision returns to me quickly and vividly and I sit up, expecting a wave of dizziness to overcome me, but nothing happens. My breathing is fine and I frown, unable to feel the tickling feel of the tubes. I frown, looking around, fumbling for them, but they're not here. They're not anywhere… And I'm somehow breathing.

White tendrils seem to merge into actual buildings and the more I look, the clearer it gets. I recognise the city and the name pops into my head. Amsterdam.

I stand up, surveying wherever I am. Glancing down, I realise I am still in my pyjamas but I don't have time to feel embarrassed as I start walking down the cobbled street. People walk by me, idly continuing their daily routine, as if a barely-clothed teenage girl isn't wandering their roads.

"Excuse me," I say to one man, but his eyes are glued to his phone and he doesn't acknowledge me. "Excuse me?"

I watch him walk away and a panic should be rising in my chest but I am captured in a state of eerie calm.

"Hazel Grace."

I freeze. That voice. Spinning around, I prepare myself for the onslaught of disappointment, but it doesn't come.

"God, you're so beautiful," he breathes, his voice sounding pained.

This can't be real.

He's standing there, leaning against the railing of the old bridge. I almost laugh at the way he can still look impossibly cool in the hospital gown he is wearing, but the sound catches in my throat. He's wearing that crooked half-smile that twists his lips to the side and he seems to be glowing.

"So, Hazel Grace, do you still not believe in an afterlife?"

I almost don't get the words out. "I think forever is an incorrect concept." I cannot even function properly. "You?"

"Yes. I believe in Something with a capital S," he replies, grinning widely. "Always have, always will."

I bite my lip, holding back a laugh before I run at him. My arms wrap around his neck and I feel his large arms move to grip my waist. I hug him tightly. I can't believe he's here. Tears fall and I let them, overwhelmed.

Pulling away, my hands find his face and I supress a sob.

"Augustus…"

His eyes are filled with tears and his smile grows softer. "The one and only."

My fingers caress the creases by his lips and eyes, the imperfections on his cheeks. I brush the tears away and rest my forehead against his.

"I missed you so much…" I manage to choke out.

He laughs, causing more tears to fall. "I'm glad to hear you didn't fall hopelessly in love with anyone else while I've been gone… I missed you too."

"Gus… Augustus Waters, I am still so in love with you," I whisper, smiling up at him. "It's you. It's always been you."

He shakes his head, grinning and presses a kiss to my lips. His glide over mine, softly at first, then more powerfully. I close my eyes, savouring the moment. My hands encase his face, cradling it as he holds me close. There is so much _feeling_ in this kiss _._ All of the hurt and pain and love that we thought was lost. Our noses bump, our cheeks are flushed and when we pull away, I continue to hold him close. I can't bear to ever let Augustus go ever again. I see him swallow and his face drops. My smile quickly fades. "Gus, what's wrong?"

"I said I'd fight it," he says, his voice low and torn. Shaking his head, he continues, "I said I'd fight it for you… Hazel, I tried. Honestly, I tried so hard. I wanted to stay with you and hold your hand and make out some more and I wanted to write a eulogy for you. I'm sorry. I tried-"

"I know you tried," I say, holding his face. "It's okay. Augustus, I know you tried. You don't have to be sorry."

"I should have fought harder-" he sobs, but I cut him off.

"It's freakin' cancer, Gus, not a war. It's not like one of your video games. You don't die and then come back to life; you don't throw yourself on a grenade, then automatically regenerate. Life doesn't work like that… Cancer doesn't work like that! It wasn't your fault."

He just stares at me, a smile, small and sad, but a smile nevertheless, curling his lips. "I'm in love with you," he says quietly, looking at me like I am something wondrous.

"Augustus," I say.

"I am," he says. He's staring at me, and I can see the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that this is our inevitable oblivion, and that we've been doomed for longer than we can even comprehend and the day has passed when all our labour has returned to dust and I have no idea as to what lies beyond where we are now, and I am _so in love with you_."

I pull him closer to me, digging my face into his chest to hide my smile. I can feel him rumbling with laughter and he's so warm and his bones protrude and his heart beats and I'm not sure whether any of this is real, but all I can think is I'm finally home.

Frowning, I lift my head up to look at him.

"Where are we?"

"I don't know," he says simply, reaching up to brush some hair behind my ear.

"What happens next?"

He smiles. "I don't know."

I gasp in mock-horror. "You mean, Augustus Waters doesn't have some philosophical, totally extraordinary presupposition to present to me?"

Grinning, Augustus tilts his head and says, "You think I'm extraordinary?"

I laugh, pushing his shoulder, but his hands are still wrapped around me and he merely pulls me back, resting his chin on my head. My breathing slows and I let my eyes close in pure bliss.

"I don't know what this place is," he says and his breath tickles me. "I don't know what's next. I just know that I waited a very long time to love you. And I waited even longer to be loved by you." Augustus pauses, dropping a kiss to the top of my head. "I'm not going to leave you ever again." His hands cup my cheeks, our noses mere inches apart and I can see the promise in his eyes. "Okay?"

And I smile.

"Okay," I whisper.


End file.
